Soccer 4 n00bs: Why the fuss over the Transfer Window

Mid season, eh?! What a time of the year. The race to the finals is underway and football managers, coaches and agents are hotline blinging fulltime to get their team ripe with the best there is to offer.

But how, you ask, can a player start out at one club and finish with another? Have you no loyalty, matey!? Ahh, but it’s bigger than that, you see, and The Football Sack tells you why.

Fans are reinvigorated

When players transfer between clubs, fans and stakeholders become more interested and suspense and excitement blossoms. Horrible memories of losing streaks and head-butts and pitiful playing strips are replaced with the prospect of fresh meat.

The ball keeps on rolling

Things can be a bit ‘meh’ when you know everyone is fighting for the same trophy in the same competition against the same teams. However, when ze mula is brought into the fold, whether it’s a little or a lot tells us all we need to know about who is hungrier for the win.

Foreigners are way more exotic

Much of the transfer activity is about Aussie players transferring between clubs which is (a little offensively) branded as somewhat mediocre. What really gets the journos going is the movement between the A-League and big clubs overseas. Brazilian icon Ronaldinho was a stone’s throw away from entering the A-League and Greek Striker Georgios Samaras was a prospect for the A-League, but alas, t’was not to be.

Treated like a guest

Sure, coaches don’t like ‘em but they’re probably a rather large help for clubs at the moment to help build momentum and add some firepower to lacking formations, but only if you’ve got financial privilege. What’s interesting this time is that a player can now be signed on for 14 games outside the salary cap. It is ABSOLUTELY NO COINCIDENCE that there is EXACTLY 14 ROUND LEFT IN THE SEASON!

Hold onto your good’uns

It’s amazing what some zeroes at the end of your pay check can do. I mean, they might even make a really great player think they can be greater somewhere else. The A-League transfer window is riddled with controversy and speculation, of course, but it’s up to football owners to make sure their team is better than it was by Feb 2 so bums are put firmly on seats for the remainder of the season.